Climate chaos demands systemic adaptation—not false normalcy—rooted in Indigenous resilience and historical precedents
Original framing: “Hoping for a ‘new normal’ climate is pointless. We must learn to adapt” — The Conversation - Global
Marginalised voices—particularly those of climate refugees, urban poor, and Indigenous leaders—are systematically excluded from adaptation policy, despite bearing the brunt of climate impacts. For example, the *Munduruku* people in Brazil’s Amazon have been protesting Belo Monte Dam’s climate adaptation claims for decades, arguing that 'green' infrastructure displaces them. Women in the Global South, who perform **60–80% of agricultural labor**, are often sidelined in adaptation planning, yet their knowledge of drought-resistant crops (e.g., *quinoa*, *millet*) is critical. The 'new normal' framing obscures that adaptation is not neutral; it redistributes risk along lines of race, class, and geography.
The 'new normal' climate narrative is a *colonial adaptation*—a way to manage the symptoms of ecological collapse without addressing its causes: the extraction of land, labor, and life by capitalist and colonial systems.
Indigenous knowledge systems, historical precedents, and marginalised voices all reveal that adaptation is not a passive response but an *active resistance*, one that requires land back, reparations, and the dismantling of structures that treat nature as a resource to exploit. The trickster dimension exposes the absurdity of framing climate chaos as 'normal' while corporations and states profit from 'solutions' that deepen inequality. The path forward lies in *systemic reconciliation*—where adaptation is tied to justice, art to survival, and science to sovereignty. This means centering the voices of those already living in the 'new normal' (e.g., Pacific Islanders, Sahel farmers) and treating their innovations as the foundation for global policy, not afterthoughts.